


green blood

by cinderrain



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Death, Blood and Injury, Gen, Homestuck Secret Santa Exchange 2017, Species Swap, not really graphic violence but just to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 07:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13141470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderrain/pseuds/cinderrain
Summary: For@browneyesbloodyknucklesfor the Homestuck Secret Santa Exchange! Merry Christmas, and I hope you like it!Jade does a favour, and Nepeta is very brave.





	green blood

You’ve been a troll for three and a half days. SBURB ended about three days ago. Dave would have more accurate numbers, or maybe he wouldn’t, because you certainly can’t teleport anymore. You’ve been a troll for barely half a week and Equius messaged you about an hour ago, panicked. 

He wants you to check on Nepeta. She hasn’t been answering her messages, and he’s already on his way, but he wants you to go too because you’re much much closer and he’s very very worried. 

You go. (There are strangers on this planet, and there are your friends, and then there are these people who pass as friends because they’re all you’ve got.)

You can smell the blood even without your doggy nose when you approach Nepeta’s hive. Something’s wrong, something’s clearly wrong, and you’ve never been the type to turn around and run from a problem but god do you want to. 

You climb up to the entrance, new claws digging into the cracks of the mountain-slope. You scrape your knuckle pulling yourself the last few feet up, and new green blood wells up. You ignore it. The smell of blood hits you, stronger, and the door is already open a crack. You ease it open further. 

It stops halfway and you can’t push it any more open. You slide through the door, and blink your eyes to adjust -- too quickly -- to the dim light inside. There’s an animal carcass on the floor. Even if you were on the right planet, you couldn’t identify it, because it’s utterly destroyed. Pieces of it, torn off, are strewn across most of the... main space. Block. It’s blocking the door and most of the way in. You can see the edges of a cave-in behind it. 

You move as carefully as you can. You have to squeeze around it, which distracts you and diverts your focus so when you get to the other side a body slams into you and pins you to the ground. Claws dig into your shoulders, and you think,  _ green blood _ . You’re never going to get used to this. 

You don’t want to die here. Fuck, you  _ can’t _ die here, that would be so stupid, you’ve made it so far. You get your hands between you and your attacker and you push, and Nepeta makes a noise of pain and in a flash she’s backed up all the way to the other side of the room, as far away as she can get from you. She curls up against the wall, and yellow eyes flash at you in the dark. 

A trail of green blood follows her, darker than yours. She’s hurt.

You don’t know anything about troll biology, and Equius said  _ keep her safe _ , and this is one-fifteenth of the people you know on this planet and she looks so afraid. You can smell her fear and it bothers you in a way that having part-dog senses never bothered you (because you know you’re going to be like this for the rest of your likely-short life). 

You shake off your species-angst and get to business. She’s hurt. You’re here to help. 

She’s probably not going to let you get close, but you stand up and approach as slowly as you can, keeping your eyes on her in case of any sudden movements. One step at a time. This is just like when Bec got hurt -- the panic, the impossibility of anything happening to him, the entirely real possibility that if you mess up he could murder you outright. The knowledge that he wouldn’t, if he wasn’t hurting like this.

This is just like that, except you have no idea what you’re doing. 

She lets you get closer than you’d expected, and it’s enough to tell that she was run through by one of the thing’s horns, and you wince in sympathy. You’re within arm’s reach, but you don’t dare touch her. You slip out your phone and pull up Equius, update him on the situation, ask him for medical help. You start to stand up from your crouch next to Nepeta to see if you can get some better lighting, or a better angle to take a picture of the wound. 

“Jade?” a very small voice asks. 

“... hi,” you answer, and you drop back down. 

Sticky fingers lace through your own, and cling with a strength that hurts a little. “Don’t leave. I’m rr _ really _ sorry.” She has to push through an involuntary growl to get the rest of her sentence out, and her breathing is getting heavier. “Don’t --”

“I won’t leave.” You sit down next to her (there’s so much you could be doing, but you can’t begin to think what when you’re looking at the hole through your friend). “I’ll be right here.” 

You hold her hand, and you wait. 


End file.
